Discussions

The new SAP transport for Mule provides connectivity with SAP ERP 6.0. Users can send an XML message that is equivalent to a BAPI function request and receive an XML message that is equivalent to a BAPI function response. The transport uses RFC and BAPI calls via JCO (SAP Java Connector) provided by SAP. For more information, visit the SAP transport project page.

I was just looking for a way to execute a SAP BAPI using JCO through a web service. The idea is to have a generic service that can run any BAPI by sending and recieving XML structures.
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You can already expose any BAPI/RFC as web-service. But this address only outbound scenario, so for an inbound scenario the use of an ESB is a viable option IMO.

Compared to a web service a solution via SAP JCo has very good performance and much better memory footprint. This is an issue as you typically load a lot of data from SAP for further processing when you run a bank or some other data intensive business.
Inbound scenario is difficult to implement since on the SAP side you have to set locks to make sure someone outside of SAP is not able to change data currently being changed by some user logged into SAP. And so far I have not seen any ordinary SAP ABAP developer who is able to do this. Best approach is to avoid an architecture with an inbound solution, only write back the final values into SAP if you have to.

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